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13 Oct, 9 tweets, 3 min read
“Allow Him to make more of you than you can make of yourself on your own. Treasure His involvement. Sometimes we consider changes in our plans as missteps on our journey. Think of them more as first steps to being 'on the Lord’s errand' (D&C 64:29)."
#RonaldARasband
It’s been a tough year. Relentless calamity, social instability, pandemic lockdowns, political chaos. Life events of the simplest nature & need have been cancelled. People we love or admire have buckled under the pressure, let us down, faded away. The isolation can be crippling.
The road, however straight, feels to be narrowing with every step. The demoralizing noise from the great & spacious building is mind-numbing. Dangerous detours are tempting. The haze of despair is thick & blinding. It’s so much. It is just so much.
Now is the time to look up from your dragging feet & survey the landscape. Reorient yourself with the path & the goal—the bright Tree of Life you’re approaching, & the gate wherein the Savior waits to welcome you. Assess your spiritual resources. Look for people to help & love.
It may seem like you’re being squeezed down a tight path not of your choosing, like your agency has dissolved, every option in life blocked or cancelled. But it only seems that way. Stay on the path. At the end of it, there are wonders that make your old goals seem laughable.
The fires of tribulation are not stoked to consume you, but to refine you. The dross that burns away, however painfully, was never really you. It was only the corruptive elements that hardened you & weighed you down. It was cankerous pride, selfish ambition, & mortal blindness.
Men’s hearts are failing. Yours must not. You have wept as trusted mentors, friends, & loved ones departed the good way. Others depend on your example; you must stay the course. Whatever you hoped for & lost—God has so much bigger plans for you. He sees the end. He is the way.
Do not mistake a course change for a misstep. Do not resist the Lord’s call to walk in a straighter path. What sacrifices seem now a punishment will prove themselves a divine mercy in the end. You’re stronger than any evil. Stand up. You’re going to be okay. #HearHim
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More from @RelevantQuest

The Relevant Questions Profile picture
26 Sep
Lewis believed nothing must frustrate the devil so much as his inability to create. Satan can only corrupt existing creations thru the hands of mortal subordinates. Love becomes lust, nourishment becomes gluttony, joy becomes empty pleasure. Nothing serves him until it’s twisted.
Evil itself is not a “thing,” but the absence of good. Dark is the absence of light. Cold is the absence of heat. Hate is the absence of love. It has been rightfully claimed that hate is not actually love’s opposite: The opposite of love is hunger—to need love & never be filled.
In an eternal sense, God being Love Itself, the absence of love—the absence of the Lord—creates a hunger that never satiates. This emptiness is an anguish that never sleeps. If you see hate in another’s eyes, you are witnessing hunger for love.
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The Relevant Questions Profile picture
24 Sep
The world is in commotion & the Church has been changing rapidly to adapt. Many have watched their best, most well-intentioned plans to serve the Lord turn to dust & sift between their fingers. That which has disrupted society feels to have disrupted God’s work...
We, like Abraham with his son Isaac, have been asked to lay our own will upon the altar & sacrifice it for the will of the Lord. Sometimes he places a ram in the thicket. “Thank you,” he says. “You gave me your will. Now MY will for you has changed.”
We may be inclined to see this disruption in the sacrificial process as a denial. We may hesitate to lower the knife. Why wld God refuse to let me do this, just as I summoned the courage to follow through? Why has he taken this away? Was it not his will? What now will I give him?
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The Relevant Questions Profile picture
18 Sep
I was talking to a friend recently who showed me a picture and said, “I was smiling then. I didn’t know that reality was about to hit me like freight train.” I replied w/ something that had crossed my mind before but without context. Maybe it was meant for my friend all along...
“Why do we always call it reality if it’s really, really bad? Maybe the bad stuff is just corruption in the code. Maybe reality is the good stuff, the good people. Maybe what’s real is beautiful and it’s everything else that means nothing in the end.”
It’s so hard to believe good things will happen. We’re conditioned to expect everything will be awful, down to the tiniest inconvenience. The struggle is part of the story, obviously. But the struggle is the messy middle. The END is ALWAYS remedied by grace. THAT is reality.
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The Relevant Questions Profile picture
6 Sep
“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others...” #FyodorDostoevsky Image
“Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself.” #Dostoevsky
“A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, & that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it...” #Dostoevsky
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The Relevant Questions Profile picture
20 Aug
I have a few. Let me start with an inspiration that happened to someone else, for me. One morning in late November, my neighbor crossed the street to be at my door. This is a risk to her. She is legally blind...
She can see vague shapes and bright colors. She’s usually accompanied by her husband when she comes by. This time she was alone and carrying a gift basket—an added risk. The basket contained Christmas treats, toys, and books, for my then-small children.
Her family are the kindest & most Christian of people, though not members of the Church. “Your family has been on my heart,” she said. “I don’t know why.” I knew why, and I told her immediately. My dad had passed away within the hour from a long and terrible illness.
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The Relevant Questions Profile picture
14 Jul
“[Satan’s] cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do [God’s] will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” #CSLewis
Miraculous turning points are often preceded by a moment of perceived bitter forsaking. Joseph Smith was “seized upon” before the First Vision. Moses was confronted by satan before God opened his great vision. Lehi wandered in a dreary waste alone before he saw the tree of life.
Christ himself felt his Father withdraw from him at the moment when he most needed to feel Him near. This was not the absence of God’s love, but its keenest presence—that the Father would allow Himself to suffer so His child could grow, transform, & overcome all evil.
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